Bucharest
His fists beat hard into the guard’s face, just blood and flesh. James kept beating him even after he felt his own fist start to bleed and after the guard stopped fighting back. One of the his guys shouted and tugged him back off the guard.
“The door’s more important Sergeant!”
“Yeah,” He spit roughly, and threw the guy back to the ground before digging for his keys… “Gottem,” He threw them to Dugan who fumbled with the lock.
“Jones, let’s move it,” Dugan called as the door swung open. A swell of excitement and adrenaline flooded James’ chest as they rushed to the cell’s opening. If they could get out… this was their only shot. They were so deep in enemy lines… and it had been too long to hope that anybody was coming to their rescue. They’d be just another casualty of war. The army they fought for didn't care about their safety over winning the war. If they didn’t get the hell out of here… well they had to get out. Simple as that.
They made it outside of the cell and down the large space with only more cells and catwalks above. But their grand escape didn’t last longer than a minute before they were surrounded by guards. The ones with the crazy weapons, and there was just no fighting against those things. James tried to fight his way out of it anyways, but… it didn’t work. They all got walked back; worse for the wear, back to the cages. Back to being damned. Back to guards staring down at them through the bars from their catwalks.
James’ temper spilled, pulse pounding away in his ears and he got his hands on the first guard he could. Maybe they could still make it out. Overthrow them before they fired. Something! In a brash decision he jumped the nearest guard, fighting with him for his gun. They struggled before another guard got up behind him and knocked him over the head with the but of a gun.
James groaned, but was forced down to his knees.
“This one is strong…” Some Nazi was talking in the background... but through the blow to the head, he could only focus on the strangest detail, a red bow on his collar. "Take him to isolation.”
“No!” He heard Dugan shout, but it sounded muted.
Somewhere past his aching head he knew that nobody that had gone to isolation had made it back out… and all they heard were the screams coming from those corridors to tell them if their fellow soldiers were still alive. Dugan struggled to get to him as they dragged him off, but James passed out soon enough, only seeing a room full of medical tables before he lost consciousness.
Bucky shook himself out of the half formed, murky memory. As was his ritual he rolled off the mattress propped on the floor of his apartment and towards the loose floorboard. After working it up, he pulled out his bag and the small journal zipped inside it.
He didn't move until he’d jotted down the jist of the memory. The day he got taken to isolation… the very first time- he believed anyways- he got a taste of the Nazi… no, he’d thought then it was the Nazi’s, but it was really Red Skull’s Hydra’s scientist. It was the first taste of the torture he’d gotten… a half rated attempt at brainwashing. It hadn’t worked… he’d hung on… not died, not broken… just… waited…. for it all to end at one point. But he had a hard time remembering who came next… or should it be what? No… a who… someone saved him from the isolation ward… saved all of them.
Steve?
He glanced down at his little book with a sigh. Who knew. It was probable, it all seemed to come back to Steve Rogers. Who he’d read every book he could find, every internet database, visited every memorial before he’d taken to overseas.
Bucky was in Romania now. He remembered enough… enough to know who Bucky was… but it was a lot harder to reconcile who was the real man in him. Bucky -James Barnes -Steve’s friend, hard fighting soldier, brash and short tempered, Brooklyn raised… or was it the Winter Solider… was that who he was now? Was it the no hesitation killer, good tactician, bound by orders, born from the cold and from mind numbing pain, cold, calculating and sometimes vicious… Which was he?
He flipped through the little book, tabs and marks all a tribute to him trying to find the answer to that one question.
He still hadn’t pieced it together. Bucky groaned unhappily and sealed up his book and bag back into the floorboard. Enough of this. He needed to get out… the walls seemed to be closing in on him. Besides… he was out of plums again… he started eating them because they’d been an old remedy for memory loss in the elderly, at least back then. It was hard to differentiate sometimes what was then and what was now, stuck in here with only old, moth eaten memories.
Bucky supposed he was the elderly… but he didn’t know if the fruit worked or not. He kept eating them anyways. Maybe it was some sort of comfort. He looked around the kitchen and found he needed bread and some more of those nutrition bars. The red ones with the nuts were the root of most of the protein in his diet. He’d better get them. It was a course of action that purpose that needed doing, and sometimes that soothed him more than the homey feeling of the fresh fruit stands.
He grabbed his gloves off the island and slipped them on, hiding the silver fist. He slowly cleared his head as he walked down the hallway. It was a nice walk to the plum stand, the weather was good and he thanked the familiar old woman when she handed over his bag. He allowed himself this one routine, because they were the freshest and she reminded him of home. Whatever that was… he just knew the feeling.
“Bună ziua, (good day)” He muttered in one of the many languages he knew, with a half smile to her before he made his way deeper into the market towards the breads. He just needed one loaf and then he’d get back to the apartment. As much as he’d needed the air to clear his head… he also didn’t like to be out in the open too long. Still, he felt like someone was watching him. Then again... he always felt that way, looking over his shoulder, paranoid he'd been discovered by Hyrda... or even Steve. Bucky couldn't face either right now and he couldn't decide which would be worse, honestly. Then again, if he could decide that, he’d be able to figure out who he was.
He’d stayed in Bucharest too long already… but something about it sat right with him, so he wanted to stay a bit longer. Not much, he wouldn't get stupid but... just a bit more. It seemed to be relaxing enough for him to really concentrate on the memories. At least he was remembering more than the nightmares in the last few weeks. So he'd stay just a few more. Try and sort out more of the memories and make them mean something.